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The Composition of Four Quartets

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The Composition of Four Quartets also by Helen Gardner The Composition of " A READI"iG OF PARADISE LOST RELIGION AND LITERA.TCRE Four Quartets THE BUSINESS OF CRITICISM (Edited by) A BOOK OF RELIGIOUS VERSE HELEN GARDNER THE METAPHYSICAL POETS THE NEW OXFORD BOOK OF ENGLISH VERSE NEW YORK OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1978 First published in Great Britain I978 by Faber and Faber Limited First published in America Preface by O:cford Uni'oersity Press Printed in Great Britain at the University Press, Oxford by Vivian Ridler Printer to the University M v first sight of the drafts of Four Quartets and of the correspondence All rights reserved with John Hayward about them was in 1947, when, as the result of a query from me over a Donne manuscript, he asked me to come to tea and showed © Helen Gardner I978 me the volumes he had bound up. This was the beginning of a close and Quotationsfrom the works oJT. S. Eliot© Valerie Eliot I978 affectionate friendship to which my labours on this book have been a kind ExtractsJrom letters and other writings by John Hayward © The Provost oj of tribute. For I knew, as I worked, that what I was doing would have given King's College, Cambridge and Mrs. Diana Oakeley I978 him pleasure. That it would have given pleasure to Eliot is more doubtful. In February Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 77-92749 194I, he wrote to the Librarian of Magdalene College, Cambridge, of which ISBN 0-19-519989-8 he was an Honorary Fellow, to enquire whether the college library took 'any interest in "contemporary manuscripts"', adding 'I don't see why it should', and offered it the 'mss.' of The Dry Salvages with the option of refusal: 'if you do like to have such mss. I shall be glad to hand over this and future ones; but if you don't there is no need to take them just to be kind.' When ~---~··--·-theMaster (A;R Ramsay), to whom the Librarian had handed the letter, wrote to express the College's pleasure in accepting the gift, Eliot expanded his uneasiness: From the point of view of an author, I am not sure such papers should be preserved at all; from the point of view of a librarian, they seem to me a nuisance: but if they are to be preserved, I should be sorry to think that they should be divided only between the Bodleian and Eliot House and that none should be at Magdalene. Some eighteen months later he wrote again to the Master to say it 'would be a pleasure' to add 'the manuscripts and papers' of Little Gidding to those connected with The Dry Salvages, with a qualification: When I say that this would be a pleasure, I do not wish this quite truthful assertion to be construed as expressing general approval of the preservation of my own or indeed of most manuscripts. As a general rule, to which I cannot perceive my own work to provide any exception, it seems to me that posterity should be left with the product, and not be encumbered with a record of the process, of such compositions as these. Their presentation, however, affords an author one of the few means at his disposal for showing his gratitude and appreciation, such as lowe towards Magdalene: and it is in this spirit that I have proposed sub­ tracting these papers from the national supply of pulp. 693269 VI PREFACE PREFACE Vll Although I share some of Eliot's apprehension that the current interest in tion about the progress of the poem, the circumstances in which it was poets at work may distract attention from what finally emerged from all written, and the major sources. Both here and in the commentary I have their toil, and believe, with him, that the study of the creative process, how­ quoted, sometimes exten.sively, fro~ articles that are not easily availab.le, ever interesting, has far less to give us than a study of the object created, including uncollected artIcles by Ehot. Far more people than scholars wIth I am reassured by the fact that four years spent with abandoned fragments, access to university libraries cherish these poems and I have tried to bear discarded readings, and what Eliot called the 'Litter' of composition has not their interests in mind. diminished my love for these poems or my conviction of their greatness. My greatest debt is to Mrs. Valerie Eliot for giving me access to all the It has, indeed, contributed to an increase of that 'understanding and enjoy­ unpublished material with a bearing on Four Quartets and for giving me ment' which Eliot in later life thought it was the prime function of criticism freedom to use it as I thought best. She has also given me information to promote. I might otherwise not have found and been most generous in answering my The length of the poems and the amount of material, particularly for questions. After her, lowe most to the late Dr. A. N. L. Munby. As the Little Gidding, has posed problems of presentation. Although Eliot was not Librarian in charge of the Hayward Collection in King's College Library, unique among poets in inviting and accepting criticism of 'work in progress' and as an old friend of Hayward's, he was enthusiastic over the whole from his friends, it is rare-in my experience unique-to find such dis­ enterprise and nobody could have been more helpful. His death, before cussion committed to paper. It seemed to me imperative for readers' comfort I had brought the work to a conclusion, was both a personal and professional that they should have the final text before them, with the process of revision loss. I am very grateful to his assistant, Mrs. Penelope Bulloch, for helpful­ attached and the comments and queries with Eliot's replies immediately ness throughout and especially after Dr. Munby's death. I have also to presented. This has involved cutting up the text and the letters, which thank the Librarians at Magdalene College, Professor J. A. W. Bennett and I regret; but the alternative would face the reader with continually flipping Mr. Pepys Whitely, for kindness in allowing me to work in the Library and to and fro to remind himself of the wording of the passage being discussed. for supplying me with photocopies, and Professor Bennett and his son, I have, however, printed in full the first draft of Little GiddingwithHiyward's~ ~""~'~'Plers,forreci:msiruCtiiig the torn-up manuscript pad there. Like all who letter upon it in an Appendix, to allow a reader the shock of reading a familiar work on Eliot I am indebted to Dr. Donald Gallup. He sent me photocopies poem in an unfamiliar form and, if he wishes, to play the game of what of the manuscript of East Coker IV and showed me Eliot's letters to Mrs. comment he would have made if faced by it as Hayward was. Perkins, his hostess at Chipping Campden, as well.as being always ready to I was tempted at the beginning to be selective and to print only those answer queries. I have also to thank the Librarian of the Houghton Library, passages and readings from the drafts which seemed to me to be significant, Harvard, for supplying me with copies of the drafts for 'Lines for an Old fearing that they might be buried under a mass of trivialities. But I decided Man' and for permission to publish them, and Mr. David Farmer, Assistant that it was my duty to make the material available and not to impose my own Director of the Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at criterion of significance upon it. The correspondence shows Eliot so Austin, for telling me of the typescript of The Dry Salvages there, for scrupulous over the minutest details in his 'wrestle with words and meanings' supplying me with a photocopy, and for permission to quote its readings that I came to the conclusion that all changes in the drafts should be noted. and to quote from a letter from Eliot to Philip Mairet. lowe my knowledge I have made an exception in dealing with the working typescripts, as distinct of this to Mr. Paul Anderson. I am grateful to the late Rear-Admiral from the drafts, of Little Gidding und not noted punctuation variants in Samuel Eliot Morison and the Editors of The American Neptune for per­ them. Eliot's manuscript drafts are very lightly punctuated, or not at all, mission to quote in extenso from his article on 'The Dry Salvages and the and his working typescripts are erratically punctuated. It is in those drafts Thacher Shipwreck' and to Professor Harry Levin for calling my attention which are in the nature of 'fair copies' that he gave his mind to problems of to this article. punctuation. For the benefit of those who are not interested in changes in Mr. George Every, formerly of the Society of the Sacred Mission at a preposition or alterations of punctuation I have signalized by an asterisk Kelham, gave me information about Eliot's visits to Kelham and his sight readings which are the subject of discussion in the commentary. of a kingfisher in flight there in the summer of the year in which he wrote As this book is not 'an edition of Four Quartets' many passages that an Burnt Norton and also, most kindly, lent me the first draft of a verse play editor would annotate are left without annotation. What annotation I have of his on King Charles's visit to Little Gidding after Naseby which Eliot provided arises usually out ofhitherto unpublished material.
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